Infallibilism most commonly refers to a view, in
epistemology (a branch of
philosophy dealing primarily with the nature and conditions of knowledge), which states that in order for a person,
s, to have knowledge of a
proposition p it necessarily must be the case that s knows that p and cannot be wrong about p (i.e., it cannot be the case that p is false). This view is opposed to
fallibilism, which is the belief that knowledge is attainable, but certainty is not. In
religion, infallibilism is the belief that certain texts or persons cannot be wrong. The most famous example of religious infallibilism is the
Catholic doctrine of
Papal Infallibility, which states that the
Pope's teaching is considered infallible under specific conditions.
See also: Infallibility, Fallibilism